Increasing accessibility and usability of open-source data through a web map for better decision-making in India's cold chain of fresh produce

Access to actionable data on fresh food supply chains bring key advantages for various stakeholders from the public and private sectors for better decision-making. For India, many agriculture-related data are publicly available as open-source data. However, many available data are not easy to access or visualize and may require a certain degree of processing before they can be turned into interpretable information for decision-making. For that reason, these data are often not used to their full potential. Here we present an interactive web map^[1] that collates and visualizes relevant open-source data for fresh food supply chains in India. The available data layers include cropland, elevation, electrical grid, crop production, cold storage locations, air temperature, solar radiation, road network, market locations, mobile coverage, and census. This visual representation of the selected data layers serves as a decision-making tool for stakeholders in the fresh produce supply chain, including social enterprises like farmer producer organizations and policymakers, as well as financial institutions, cooling providers, NGOs, and government bodies. A practical example of this is identifying where cooling could provide the highest shelf life gains and where to site future cold storage facilities. We anticipate that this web map can lead to finding relevant insights that could help stakeholders optimize their supply chain of fresh produce. This web map could be a starting point for understanding correlations between various parameters and for narrowing the data literacy gap in agricultural sectors in India.

[1]The web map and this document were prepared as part of Your Virtual Cold Chain Assistant (YourVCCA) project. YourVCCA team: maps@yourvcca.org